


mononoaware (もののあわれ)

by meganekun



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Count The Memes, Epiphanies, Getting Together, M/M, Pre-Graduation Vibes, Self-Esteem Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-19
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:18:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7813948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meganekun/pseuds/meganekun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p> the awareness of the impermanence of beauty, appreciation of the fleeting nature of it, pathos of things; </p>
</blockquote>or the story of how Hanamaki Takahiro comes to certain realizations in his last high school year.
            </blockquote>





	mononoaware (もののあわれ)

**Author's Note:**

> i didn't sit on this nearly as long as i would have liked to but i also really wanted to share this because i love matsuhana my small meme children and i'm not dissatisfied with how this came out.  
> ps: the implied mention of mattsun being mistreated in middle school ties in with my jewish mattsun hc please consider it ;-;

 

 

 

 

 

Sometimes Takahiro catches himself thinking.

It’s just the two of them today, Matsukawa and him, walking through the deafeningly quiet schoolyard. Volleyball practice finished about twenty minutes ago, and the second and first years were nothing but eager to get home after the cooldown had gone a little bit overtime.

The four third years usually walked home all together, and thus, a chain reaction was born: Oikawa was determined to stay behind and train some more, Iwaizumi begrudgingly followed to make sure their dumbass captain didn’t end up going to sleep on the court (speaking from experience), Takahiro slowed down the tempo of changing out of his gym clothes, and – something a quick, stolen glance out of the corner of his eye confirmed – Matsukawa had followed his lead and taken out his phone, scrolling through some social media feed with lazy strokes of his thumb, his shirt half-pulled up, exposing his abdomen.

Takahiro stole another glance. He didn’t even look down, at first, but up, to Matsukawa’s black curls – like coal, like the night sky at 3 am, when the cicadas and the birds in the field have finally quieted down and it feels like there is nothing beyond what you can see, like you own the world around you and it owns you, in return. Thinking back on the one time Matsukawa and he’d experienced just that made him press his lips together tightly to repress the looney grin that threatened to surface. He just didn’t feel like explaining it right now.

"You guys still here?"

Takahiro watched Matsukawa throw his head back in a motion that made him a feel a little dizzy, before he himself turned around toward the locker room’s entrance into the gym, where Iwaizumi was leaning against the wall.

"Duh? We’re waiting for Hanger-san and his bodyguard," Takahiro replied then, seeing as Matsukawa didn’t make a move to open his mouth, but rather stared at their vice-captain expectantly, eyes heavy-lidded.

Iwaizumi clenched his right fist and twisted his mouth at the _bodyguard_ comment, before he shook it off and crossed his arms.

"Hanger-san’s probably going to stick around for more than just a while, you two should go, enjoy the nature and all," he explained, a small smirk gracing his lips. "See you tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," Matsukawa nodded and, before Iwaizumi could even make one step back towards the clear, sharp noises of Oikawa serving, occupied himself with his phone once again.

Takahiro threw up a peace sign and walked over to Matsukawa’s locker, throwing an arm around the shoulders of his friend.

"The meme industry booming today?" he asked, half-smirk blooming.

"Something like that."

They stood like that for a little while, Takahiro’s breath warming Matsukawa’s clothed shoulder, looking through the latter’s – what turned out to be – Instagram feed.

Matsukawa had never complained about looking at something over his shoulder, Takahiro realized. Iwaizumi would grunt and push him off wordlessly (Oikawa would cheerily ask what _Iwa-chan has to hide_ then), Oikawa would squeak and whine and demand his precious privacy be restored (then Iwaizumi would roll his eyes and smack _Shittykawa_ on the back of his head).

Takahiro frowned, wondering why it was different with Matsukawa. But he didn’t get to dwell on it too long, with his name being called quietly.

"Makki? Makki. Come on, let’s go."

Takahiro hummed a noise of consent and gave Matsukawa his space to get dressed. He did sneak a peek at his naked stomach then, but justified it by a curiosity of who out of the two was more muscular. He didn’t bother bringing the other two third years into this, because—well, because with Iwaizumi included, nothing was ever a fair competition.

So here they are now, shuffling their feet through the dust left behind by the piles of fallen leaves.

The sky is neither blue nor black, rather a tasteless brown-grey that makes even permanently tan Matsukawa matching his step on his left look lifelessly pale. Takahiro rests his hands in the pockets of his trousers, even though his jacket has one perfectly functioning pocket on each side, as well, just because he thinks it makes him look cooler.

When he does so, he involuntarily catches Matsukawa mustering him and it’s hard to tell, but Takahiro is sure the path of his gaze follows the same thought process, as he then meets his eyes and smiles that little exasperated grin he does whenever Takahiro delivers one of his terrible puns.

For some weird reason, it’s increasingly harder to tear his eyes away from that grin the longer it resides on Matsukawa’s face.

 

***

Out of an unspoken agreement, they end up going for a bowl of ramen – Tonkotsu and Tantanmen, their unchanging orders. Matsukawa offers him some of his Tantanmen, but Takahiro declines – he’s never been able to handle spice well. When they’re almost done with their food, Matsukawa excuses himself to the guest toilet, leaving Takahiro in the company of the cooling ramen bowls and floral chopsticks, looking out of the window next to their corner table. He watches the leaves swirl underneath the now completely grey sky and doesn’t see the light rain that has begun through the dirty glass.

It’s not Takahiro’s forte, emerging himself in his thoughts, reflecting on things, drawing conclusions from them. On the court he’s quick to react, but he doesn’t have what it takes to be able to block a quick, seemingly coming out of nowhere, misjudges what spiker is going to hit the toss sometimes. He makes up for it with his solid receives, powerful spikes and precise tosses, but even now, he feels a bit lost, losing himself in his head the way he has been lately when alone.

Did Matsukawa always want to share food with him? Would Oikawa and Iwaizumi have done the same? Maybe Matsukawa wasn’t as hungry as he thought and was eager to get rid of the rest of his food, maybe he genuinely wanted Takahiro to try his favorite flavor, maybe he was simply being polite.

He shakes this train of thought off, but only finds himself spiraling down further, when he remembers the conversation he’d had with Matsukawa that night in the field. How the middle blocker had, through gritted teeth almost, bared his mind to him, shared with him his fears regarding the end of high school, his fear of what life had – or didn't have – in store for him, now that he’s stepping out of his comfort zone and into the wide world.

They have never been the type of friends to have deep, philosophical conversations. Not that they weren’t able to, but it’s easier sometimes, reverting to sarcasm and giving each other weird nicknames and gossiping about classmates.

But on certain occasions, when the circumstances align, it’s always Matsukawa who starts it; addresses a topic that has clearly been making him do mental gymnastics for longer than his laid-back approach to it lets on. It’s up to Takahiro then, to laugh it off with some inappropriate joke or reference, or take the bait and give him an answer as serious as he can manage, until the discussion flows naturally and it’s easier to voice the thoughts that he never knew he had.

Matsukawa does bring out a different side of him, sometimes.

 _I don’t really know where I’m going with anything,_ Takahiro hears the calm voice of his friend venting in his head, a note of something beyond frustration or simple annoyance on the tip of his tongue. It was a sentence abstract enough, but in a way, so precisely put that Takahiro couldn’t help but feel it in his bones. Especially now, with this weather that almost constricts, sky hanging so low that it could fall on and crush him, not unlike the foggy ideas they’ve been tossing back and forth.

"Penny for your thoughts?"

Matsukawa’s grin comes into view and Takahiro internally curses, because once again it’s like Matsukawa had spread glue all over his lips and his eyes got stuck, or he had spontaneously gotten a tongue piercing that is simultaneously a magnet and—okay, that’s enough with the awful metaphors. No wonder his grade in Literature this semester is so bad.

"Sorry, Issei, you must have mistaken my resting bitch face for my I’m-pondering-over-complex-philosophical-questions one."

And, at first, a few seconds go by, as if nothing happened. A few calm, blissful seconds of pleasant, friendly banter, before Takahiro realizes his slip-up and his eyes roll to the tip of his nose out of sheer mortification.

It shouldn’t be this embarrassing. First names are not off-limits in their friendship, though they do prefer either their full last names, or – and none of them will ever admit just how willingly – the nicknames Oikawa has given them. On occasion, when the conversation allows for clowning around in fake sweet-sugary voices, they use the -kun or even -chan suffixes, but, come to think of it, Takahiro can’t remember the last time he’s heard his personal name leave Matsukawa’s lips that wasn’t in their first year, back when they were still testing their limits with each other.

However, after a certain time, and Takahiro is aware of this, he started referring to Matsukawa by his first name in his head or when talking to any of his friends – friends that are not Iwaizumi or Oikawa, because the latter would tease him relentlessly and depending on his mood, so would Iwaizumi. (Yes, it happened once. Who knew he could be such an asshole? Must be Oikawa’s influence.)

And the thing is, he knows he can play it off. Sure, they haven’t known each other their whole lives – that must give you some kind of bulletproof certainty with those things – but deep within himself, he can’t help but wonder what this could mean. Not that shallow, for the most part ironic investigation of Matsukawa’s actions he digested earlier, but the kind of _wonder_ that he thinks he doesn’t want to indulge in because the answer might not be the one he’s looking for. (Or the one he’s been looking for all along – it’s not uncommon for those to be one and the same.)

"My bad, Takahiro-kun," Matsukawa exclaims, his eyebrows shooting up, mouth forming a perfect O, "all that ramen you ate must have bloated your face so much that it’s become unrecognizable to me."

"What did you just say? I can’t hear it when you speak like the giraffe you are," Takahiro shoots back promptly.

"You’re a hobbit."

"Iwaizumi’s a hobbit."

"True."

 At that, the exchange dissolves into laughter and Matsukawa resumes eating his ramen. The only time they speak again before leaving the restaurant is when Takahiro remembers a Harambe meme he found this morning.

It’s an English iMessage screenshot to a contact named "My Boo" and the message, sent somewhere in the A.M., – Takahiro can’t see that much upside down, because whenever he shows Matsukawa a meme, the latter insists on taking his phone to look at it properly, but he can’t complain since _he_ always insists on reading every meme he sees out loud – contains another screenshot, this one from Twitter. ['Are you brave enough to spell your true love’s name with emojis?'](https://www.instagram.com/p/BJGHXKAA1L5/) – Takahiro would read it out loud if, again, he was better at reading upside down – it says, above letters assigned to emojis such as a sunflower for I or a clover leaf for S. Matsukawa leans down further over the phone to decipher the reply – in emojis, of course – and his eyelashes flutter.

When Takahiro can’t do anything but stare again, he knows he’s gonna have to deal with this properly. Eventually.

***

If they had been walking slowly from the gym to the ramen shop, this time Matsukawa sets a pace that can only be compared to a snail’s. (Takahiro’s first thought was _turtle,_ but after a late afternoon spent watching animal videos on YouTube, he knows better. How come whenever all four of them hang out, they end up doing relatively normal teenager things, but with Matsukawa it’s always stuff like this? Not that he’s objecting, of course.)

The rain stopped back when they were paying at the restaurant and the smoke of the clouds is now clearing up slowly. Small puddles line the sides of the street and Takahiro recognizes in their reflections the shot of blue among the fog of grey in the sky.

Most prominent, however, is the petrichor in the air. Takahiro has always liked the scent of the earth after rain, the way it settles tangibly in your lungs and seems to expand them, the sweetly fresh taste of it on your tongue. He closes his eyes and breathes it in deep, but doesn’t allow himself to do it again, since he’s not alone – Matsukawa might think it’s weird.

When Takahiro turns his head to look at said boy, he finds him with his gaze on the floor, but his head turned toward Takahiro. It reminds him a little bit of the fond look Matsukawa had given him earlier and he acknowledges, completely neutrally, that if he would decide to do it again, Takahiro would probably, most likely, find it kind of cool. If he did it right, of course.

They walk in silence for a few minutes, before Matsukawa speaks up.

"Do you think Oikawa got scouted already?"

Takahiro can’t help the widening of his eyes and the furrow of his slim eyebrows.

"I don’t know, I… I didn’t think about whether he’d want to go pro," he says and realizes, in retrospect, how silly this sounds – Oikawa Tooru, their captain, the one who overworks himself physically by training overtime and mentally by pulling all-nighters, watching and analyzing game tapes, the one who sacrifices everything a person their age can, not counting his annoying popularity among girls (though he does sacrifice his love life – he could never stand to put any of his brief girlfriends over volleyball, after all).

Matsukawa only nods.

"I’m asking you because we’d already talked to Iwaizumi about it, remember? And I was wondering if they’re planning to go to the same university, but I feel weird just straight up asking them."

Iwaizumi had received one volleyball scholarship from a university that had a solid, though not very successful team, but according to Iwaizumi, it didn’t suit him academically, and so he would most likely decline their offer and seek a better one and take its entrance exam.

All of them had talked about their preferable options that day, except for Oikawa, who remained annoyingly mysterious. They tried to push as much as they deemed appropriate and silently voted to leave the rest to Iwaizumi. It was clear Oikawa was in of his moods and the two of them found out fairly early that when they got bad to a certain degree, Iwaizumi was the only one who could not only put up with, but haul Oikawa out of them.

Iwaizumi will be the most pre-experienced in his medical training, Takahiro’s first thought was when he found out about Iwaizumi’s profession of choice. He hadn’t hesitated to voice that, no matter the overdramatic reaction of Oikawa or the constipated look on Iwaizumi’s face. Matsukawa had beamed and raised his hand for a high-five ("Took the words right out of my mouth, Makki.")

Some of their options had overlapped. Matsukawa and Takahiro, unlike Iwaizumi, had not settled on a professional path yet, and so some of their choices were universities that offered a broad assortment of courses, so that they could change their majors freely if it came down to it. Many of them were local, too – as much as moving to another prefecture sounded like an adventure, as little was it worth if the university life ended up not working out.

Also, mother’s cooking. Good stuff.

"I think it’d be good. For Oikawa, if no one else," Matsukawa smirks. Takahiro nods, chuckling.

"Think some time apart would do them good, though," he says finally, after a while of rolling the words on his tongue. Matsukawa blinks, like he’d never considered that before.

"What, you think they get tired of each other?"

"They’re past tired. I think just seeing the other makes them die a little inside every day," Takahiro grins, but, for once, Matsukawa’s face expression doesn’t assemble his. He looks pensive, a bit sad even. Takahiro swallows; it was bound to happen, eventually, him stretching past his limits. He’d always been the one to hold his tongue too late, but he thought he was getting better at it. Maybe the atmosphere made him too comfortable.

Maybe Matsukawa did.

Speaking of whom, he presses his tongue against his cheek; Takahiro sees it puff and the hands in his pockets clench involuntarily.

He doesn’t remember this happening during that night in the field, but maybe this is a new tick Matsukawa has – maybe he does it whenever he gets serious.

"I’d like to not lose touch with any of you," he says, and whatever sadness Takahiro saw in his face, he thinks he might have been mistaken, because his voice is so damn steady and neutral. And adds: "After we graduate," like it was necessary to mention.

"Me too," Takahiro says quickly, because he senses Matsukawa isn’t done yet, but doesn’t want to let him hold a monologue; he knows he finds speaking without interruption for extended time periods uncomfortable. "I feel the same."

"To be honest, I would absolutely not be against going to the same university as you, or Iwa, or even Tooru," he continues then, and Takahiro looks for the shaking of his fingers in the motions of his hands. "But I would never push the idea on any of you; and I absolutely understand if you wouldn’t want to. Do that. See me around almost every day. End of high school means a new life, after all. I understand if you wouldn’t want to have me in it."

Takahiro has started holding his breath at the 'I understand if you wouldn’t want to' before he even knew what Matsukawa was about to say. He stops walking, and the loose fists in his pockets tighten in a completely different way to before.

His throat dries out and his tongue feels too big for his mouth, so he opens it. Opens it, grits his teeth, closes it again, but the pain his untrimmed nails cause by biting into the soft skin of his palms isn’t enough to cancel out the ache in his chest. It comes from somewhere deep within, deeper than when Matsukawa makes him laugh, deeper than when Matsukawa makes him laugh so hard he starts to cry, deeper than his heart that Matsukawa makes him speak from.

Hanamaki knows it’s physically impossible, but he thinks he can feel his heart drop, he just doesn’t know in what direction. It feels really uncomfortable and painful, anyway.

Matsukawa stops walking, too. Takahiro comes closer, and closer, but he won’t look at him, and that makes his eyes prickle almost as much as Matsukawa thinking they— _he_ wouldn’t want to be with him. As much as Matsukawa walking across the street, with the dark blue —the color of their Seijoh tricots, when they would be packed away into the depths of their dark wardrobes once they wouldn’t need them anymore — sky above him, Takahiro’s favorite smell surrounding them in this small alley they have walked into to take a shortcut to their houses, casually as ever, and thinking of himself less, _so much less_ than he’s worth.

Because Matsukawa to him, but just in general, too, is worth everything and then some, Takahiro realizes, and understanding that feels a whole lot different than any of the emotional turmoil he has gone through (which is so not a sentence Takahiro would have ever been able to say about himself, before today. Whatever or whoever the hell did that to him, he has a few words to say to them).

It doesn’t hurt, or pierce, or gnaw, or pick at him – it can’t, because it never did. Hanamaki Takahiro, before his constipated, out-of-touch-with-his-emotions self could even begin to consider the possibility (that it was a possibility, in the first place), had fallen in love with Matsukawa Issei, every day, every time he did that funny, fake-arrogant face that ended up making him look like a weed smoker, every time he scowled and grumbled at the knots in his little sister’s unruly curls, every time he grinned with his eyes closed at the pats of his teammates after a successful block, a tiny little bit more.

Because he does the grimaces to cheer them up when one of them is in a bad mood for some dumb reason, but he cares anyway; because he would never tell his sister to her face how happy and proud he is to have her, and nobody else as his sibling; because he’s at his best when he knows he can be of help. Because he lets Takahiro spam him with copy pasta memes at 1 am when he can’t sleep and goes out of his way to photoshop Oikawa’s face onto inanimate objects, even though he has to turn on his computer for it. Because nobody talked to him in middle school, and yet he listens to all of their stories about that time like they’re the most endearing thing he’s ever heard.

Because Matsukawa Issei is probably, most likely, the most beautiful person Takahiro has ever encountered in the little bit over a decade he’s spent meeting people, in all senses and aspects and meanings of the word you could think of. And Takahiro, possibly, most likely, has never told him so, because he was too busy researching bee anatomy. There’s something seriously wrong with his priorities and he needs to redeem himself, as soon and as often as possible.

"God, I’m—that sounded so manipulative, didn’t it. I swear I didn’t mean it like that, it’s just—"

"Issei."

He doesn’t feel embarrassed this time.

"If you think that Iwaizumi, or Oikawa, or the dumbass that is standing in front of you— that any of us, at any time, dared to entertain the prospect of not wanting to be around you, I can tell you right now, buddy— you are dead wrong. You are wrong, because it’s simply not plausible at all. You’re the best out of all of us, and I," Takahiro swallows the lump in his throat as best as he can.

"I could swear on it. I mean it, I mean all of it, when I say that I don’t know what we would do without you, how those three years would have been without you being there for us, taking care of us, when you think we don’t notice – but we do. We wouldn’t be the people we are now without you, and you might think: oh, but if you say it like that, then that must be the case with all of us – but that’s not it, it’s not right – shit, I shouldn’t have said that, how am I gonna argue against that now, fuck – but you just listen to me, Issei.

"You are special. _I_ think you’re special, like when I think or see certain things, you’re the only thing that comes to mind, even if they’re goddamn generic, because you’re the only one who matters. You are the kindest, most selfless person I have ever known and will ever know and to think that there are people who got robbed of—of the prestige, of the honor and delight of knowing you? I feel bad for them, honestly, because they will never experience what we did having you in our lives. They could travel to Mars or discover that mermaids are not a myth or learn how to control elements, and it still wouldn’t compare, not in the slightest, because you are _so important_.

"And not to spread my bitter vibes here, you deserve everything the universe gives you, but it is not enough for all that you have given it back. I just— shit, I know it’s hard, always being positive and confident, it’s a battle, and you are more than strong enough to stay on top of it, but I just can’t handle you doubting yourself like this, to the core, it’s not right, it’s not fair, I just want to be there for you, always, I l—"

Takahiro thinks he should have seen it coming, because they’re not standing far away from each other, but maybe he was too out of it, trying to find the right words feverishly – and he does feel his cheeks burn, now that he recognizes sensations again – but the most he can manage in that moment, is not give into the weakness of his legs and fall to his knees.

When Matsukawa closes the distance between them in one quick stride and presses Takahiro against him, chest to chest, and encloses him in his arms. Takahiro doesn’t think he’s ever been held this tight, ever been this warm and comfortable in another person’s embrace, but even as out of it as he is, he can acknowledge that it’s not really due to the quality of Matsukawa’s hugs – though he is extremely cuddly, he’s not the most skilled hugger he’s met – but because of what he makes him feel.

Because he always brings out the best of him.

"Issei, I—" he murmurs against his cheek, because there is the slightest difference in height between them, after all.

"Shhh," Issei murmurs back and digs his fingers into the material of his jacket. "Don’t ruin the moment, 'Hiro."

"You don’t have to say it," he whispers, then, contradicting himself.

"I already know."

Takahiro feels lips in a toothy grin kiss his nose.


End file.
